Experienced

By Anonymous, Newark, DE

Image Credit: Jordan K., Oxford, GA

The author's comments:

you truly do not know someone until you look past there cover and read their pages. this story is like my pages.

Weak, lonely, and heartbroken, as I lay in bed my thoughts drift to last year. Thinking of all the trials and tribulations I was forced to over come. Thinking of the story I so bravely wrote and read to my English class so that they would understand me. I remembered the tears that streamed down my face every night unfailing. Then as I lay still in bed I feel them once again hot and heavy rolling on by one down my cheeks. I started whipping them away as they fell faster. How could tears fall that fast through tightly closed eyes?

Slowly I opened my eyes, turning my head to the window to find my kitten peering at me through the curtains. I hear a huff and my big lug of a dog puts her head on my stomach. I smile. My mind started to drift back to lying in bed in my tiny room sobbing in panic calling out in soft muffled cries for my mommy who would never come. She was miles away and I was stuck in this little room, in a house that was never going to be home. This house just several feet from the house that I used to call home. Panic attack after panic attack, sob after sob, just wanting my mommy or daddy to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. I was trapped in a place that I now had to accept was my home. But how could I call a place that I could not sleep or eat in a home?

On sleepless nights I would crawl out of my bed across my dirty floor to my door. I would quietly open the door crawl down the steps and across the hall to my foster sisters room. She never slept. She would take me in her arms and hold me until my sobs and shaking ceased. We would sit and talk and she would never tell anyone I was falling apart. She would tell me everything would be okay and my parents were doing everything they could to get me back. I would tell her I wanted to go home then start tearing up knowing I had no home any longer. My home was taken away. I was homeless and placed in the care of a foster family. I drifted back from my thoughts again.

Being evicted from the place I called home for thirteen glorious years of my life was the worst thing I have ever experienced. The event put so may horrid thoughts into my head. My thoughts as I lay in bed drifted to that place. How could they keep pestering me? My life wasn’t that bad. I had a room of my own. I had my own bed. I had a family that cared about me. These thoughts finally got to be too much for me to hold inside. I had to tell someone and on one beautiful September day in the middle of a fight with the boy that is now no longer in my life these thoughts came out. My foster sister was standing right behind me and I hadn’t noticed. I begged her to not tell a soul. But she couldn’t keep that from our mom. My foster mom then called the school I attended and told them my thoughts. I was then called into the psychologists’ office. They placed me on suicide watch. That wasn’t all so bad. I was given safe zones where if I had a bad day I was able to go. I had places where I finally found comfort from this horrible life I was living. I felt safe for the first time since I lost my home. Then in April, something miraculous happened. I had found hope in life again, and while on break from school I moved into an apartment with my parents. I noticed the change the first night. My panic attacks ceased to exist. The nights full of tears were gone. Life was on the upswing. As school came to an end and summer started my depression slipped into a peaceful coma.

The time I spent with my foster family helped me to stay focused. They encouraged me to do good things in life, even when it got hard. Moving in with my parents brightened my spirits. When I look back sure I cry, but going through this round of trials and tribulations helped me to become the strong willed brave young lady I am today.

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